It's official: Leno leaving ‘Tonight' next year

NBC on Wednesday announced its long-rumored switch in late night, replacing
Jay Leno at the “Tonight” show with
Jimmy Fallon and moving the iconic franchise back to New York.

Fallon will take over in about a year, the switch coinciding with NBC's Winter Olympics coverage. Veteran “Saturday Night Live” producer
Lorne Michaels also will take over as executive producer of “Tonight.”

NBC made no announcement on who would replace Fallon at the 12:35 a.m. “Late Night” slot, although
Seth Meyers of “Saturday Night Live” is considered a strong candidate.

The change at “Tonight,” the longest-running and most popular late-night talk show, had been widely reported but not confirmed by the network until Wednesday. NBC reportedly had just wrapped up negotiations with Fallon on a contract extension.

Steve Burke, chief executive of NBC Universal, said the network is purposefully making the move when Leno is still at the top of the ratings, just as when Leno replaced Johnny Carson at “Tonight” in 1992.

“Jimmy Fallon is a unique talent and this is his time,” Burke said.

Ebert's cancer returns

Acclaimed film critic
Roger Ebert said he's been diagnosed with cancer again and that he will scale back his prolific writing of movie reviews while undergoing radiation treatment.

In a blog post, the 70-year-old critic said he'll take a “leave of presence.”

“I am not going away,” the Pulitzer Prize winner wrote in a note posted late Tuesday. “My intent is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave the rest to a talented team of writers. … What's more, I'll be able at last to do what I've always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review.”

The veteran critic battled cancer in his thyroid and salivary glands and lost the ability to speak and eat during previous surgery, which also left him with a facial disfigurement.

Ebert said the cancer recurrence was discovered after a “painful fracture” that made it difficult for him to walk. He was hospitalized late last year with a hip fracture.

Norway exams shifted for concert

Five schools in western Norway have rescheduled their midterm exams to allow students to attend upcoming
Justin Bieber concerts in the capital, the country's Ministry of Education and Research said Wednesday.

The Canadian pop star is scheduled to perform in the Norwegian capital on April 16 and 17 – stoking fears that some students in remote schools will skip midterm exams scheduled to take place at the same time.

Bieber is extremely popular in the Nordic country, where his free concert in Oslo last year resulted in dozens of injuries as teenage girls fought to get better glimpses of the 19-year-old icon.

Embassy deletes tweet on Stewart

Oh, the perils of digital diplomacy!

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo temporarily shut down its Twitter feed Wednesday and deleted a tweet linking to a video of “The Daily Show,” in which host
Jon Stewart mocked Egyptian President
Mohammed Morsi. The monologue about the arrest of an Egyptian satirist offended the Egyptian government and sparked an unusual diplomatic incident.

The embassy's Twitter account was deleted – and then restored minus the Stewart post – after Egyptian authorities objected to a tweet that contained a link to Stewart's Monday show in which he joked about the arrest of a high-profile satirist,
Bassam Youssef, who has poked fun at Morsi, U.S. officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

In the clip tweeted by the embassy, Stewart came to the defense of Youssef and criticized Morsi for his arrest and interrogation as being undemocratic and petty. Youssef has been a guest on Stewart's program.

Gosling comes to defense of cows

He's not milking his fame, but
Ryan Gosling is lending his name to the cause of cows. The 32-year-old actor sent a letter this week to the National Milk Producers Federation urging the group to advocate against the industry practice of removing calves' horns. He asks that they help stop what he calls a “barbaric practice” by requiring farmers to breed naturally hornless cattle.

The letter was released Wednesday by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Gosling has worked with the group before in its campaign urging KFC to adopt more humane methods of slaughtering chickens.

A spokesman from the National Milk Producers Federation said Wednesday that cows' horns are dangerous, and dehorning reduces injuries to cows and people.

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